The HK Experience

I just got back from a 5-day vacation and the experience was very enriching. I loved almost everything about Hong Kong! Everything is so... clean.

Every person out on the street walks with purpose. I never really saw how efficient Chinese people were until I went there! I had such an amazing time and I feel like I don't want to come back, hahahah!

I will return next year XD

Will Be Gone For A Week

I've been to the city for only two days and already I'm so bored to tears partly because I am not in the mood to ask friends for a drink and partly because our old TV broke down. Of all the days I've been away, it never broke. It chose this day to fizzle out and die.

So I had no choice but to spend the day either surfing the net (Indeed, I had Sky bro installed yesterday! So far it's been awesome!) or catnapping. I'm so freakin' bored. I can't wait to buy another TV but it has to wait until March because next week, I'll be vacationing in HK. Speaking of which, I'm very excited about my trip. I started packing my things and going over each item to bring, it's actually pretty fun. All the planning and the scheming and now it's here!

The last time I had a real vacation was back when I went to Vigan with a few friends and my big sister.The experience was something I truly enjoyed and I can't wait to see other cities in the Philippines in the months ahead.

I'm scheduled to go to CamSur with the Angels sometime in August and this means I will have to whip my butt into shape in order to look half decent in a swim suit. Since I started working from home, I have grown soft around the middle and my appetite has been ridiculous! Like today, I totally pigged out on Paella and Oxtail stew! I bought the goodies from a resto which, from what I heard, is top notch in terms of taste. And boy, the food didn't disappoint! It was so darn good! However, I know I should start putting an end to my binging and start eating sensibly.

I'm hoping HK will be the last time I'll pig out. I plan to start working out and make a conscious effort to burn calories. Haay, hirap ng buhay! So there, I'm looking forward on not writing boringass articles for a week!

High five!

Defying Gravity

One of the few issues that I was never open about is my relationship with my father. The fact is, my father and I always had an often volatile relationship which stemmed since childhood. It is one of those things that I never outgrew. We would always bicker about the most inane things. When I moved back in to my parents’ home last year, I knew it was only a matter of time before the whole cycle start all over again. It did the other day. We fought about something so silly. Next thing I knew, it escalated to a completely new level. Of course, this has always been the case but this time I fought back in the only language he knew. He said the most outrageous things. It always surprises me how warped my dad’s logic is.

To cut the long story short, I left our house and I came back here in the city. Despite the prospect of not seeing my mom and little brother for a long time, I felt that it was the necessary thing to do. My mom was devastated that I had to go because she always depended on me to do little things for her. She got used to seeing me lounging around and she thought I would stay for good. My brother is equally devastated.

I am hoping his young mind will not be able to grasp the true situation. I hate that he is coming across these types of drama at such an early age. Both of them begged me to stay. I wanted to, but the thing is, I would rather leave than put up with my father’s bullshit. I liked that there is open hostility between the two of us because I’m through pretending. I have no respect for the old man.

Not crying over the whole thing is probably the hardest thing I had to do. I was such a mess these past couple of days but I never allowed myself to cry over it. I believe I have grieved long enough and crying will just make things even sorrier.

I was looking forward on doing so many things in Tarlac like celebrating my birthday, taking Waki to the annual fair, attending Waki’s graduation from prep school. Unfortunately, the tide has turned and I am resigned to stay here in seclusion. So just to make it official, I am back in the city.

... Not the way I initially planned it to be but I’m here nonetheless.

The Week That Was...

I'm just rounding up my first week at work. While I had a very shaky first day, the succeeding days were much better. I did hate having to wake up around 7:00, it was excruciating! For the most part, work went smoothly. Raket guy had me neck-deep in shit when he went for a vacation but I'd like to think I did great considering I was juggling two jobs.

I did have a minor spat with my account manager, or whatever it is that she does. Don't get me wrong, she's been accommodating, to the point of being creepy, but sometimes she asks the most inane questions. I usually just try my best to answer but I guess I got miffed because she's asking questions with obvious answers so freakin' early in the morning.

Nyak!

(Re)Bonding

After months and months of blow drying and ironing my locks, my hair turned into a crunchy, mangy mess. I've had it! I took take time off to have my hair re-bonded. While the five whopping hours it took to have my hair re-bonded is downright grueling, it's well worth the effort. My locks couldn't be more shiny, it couldn't be more soft! It's a miracle, I tell you! It's one shiny blanket that sits atop my head!

When I was a student, I used to blow my allowance on bi-annual hair relax treatments. However, after I had my long locks cut into a pixie 'do, I went without any hair treatments for years! I made the mistake of thinking my bad hair days are over so I grew my hair long. Boy, was I surprised to find that my hair is just as terrible now as it was then. After dutifully blow drying/ironing/hot oiling my tresses every freakin' morning for months, I finally had it. I went to a stylist recommended by my cousin and had my hair done.It took five hours and the constant heat made my head hurt like hell but...

Voila, my bad hair days are gone... for a year, tops. :)

New Client, New Kalbaryo

I just got hired this morning and I was tasked to create articles about credit cards. Just when I thought nothing would be more boring than writing insurance policies. I was actually thinking of not working until March. You see, my incoming trip to HK is creating problems. I have been let go at the most inconvenient of times. To be honest, I lost shitload of clients over my HK trip. Quite understandably, they are not willing to give me a week off after only working with them for several days. So I sort of gave up on the idea of being hired this month and I was so looking forward on  slacking off for a bit and do occasional articles for raket guy.

I wake up one morning and I got hired.

I'm a little dumbfounded that the company I will be working for not only agreed on my unusual work schedule, they also agreed to give me a week off for February. It's either they needed a writer desperately or I'm in for the long haul. I can't say I'm excited because having nothing to do for a week sorta made me lazier than usual. The prospect of completing five articles a day seemed pretty daunting at this point. However, I couldn't be more grateful.

I do have several big plans this year and I'm hoping it includes a lot of out of town and even out of the country trips. So I really need to make ipon and do my best not to buy too many things at once. What I need at this point is self-control. Haaay!

This Child

Kids, in general, are cute. I'm not saying "cute" pertaining to a child's looks alone. They are cute when they eat ice cream, they are cute when they ask the silliest questions, they are cute in their sunny disposition and they are cute when they sleep. However, I'm sometimes bewildered whenever I come across kids who are not cute. There is one child that rubs me in the wrong way. She's an adopted child of one of our sales ladies. Our sales lady brings her to work almost everyday because no one will look after her. She is a regular playmate of my baby brother, Waki.

There is nothing cute about this child. Now, before you say I'm being out of line and shit, let me explain why. First, she curses like a sailor. She keeps giving dirty looks to everyone, myself included. She talks back to me, to my mom, to her mom and to my dad. She will lie on the floor crying if you do not give her what she wants regardless of the place. She cries every time she wakes up, she cries if her mom did not attend to her needs fast enough, she yells at her mom like a freakin' diva, she throws garbage and spit out her food everywhere. Provoking Waki into a fight is her hobby and she hogs the remote. She is irritatingly spoiled rotten. Not cute at all.

It's very rare for me to be annoyed to a certain  kid because I'm generally good around them. Heck, I play yaya to my nieces, nephews and to my brother on a regular basis so I can't say my annoyance is borne out of inexperience with taking care of a child. Now, I did try everything I could to manage this child. And I failed every single time. My brother's yaya and our other sales ladies found this tiny three year old too much to handle on their own. My brother, who is Mr. Congeniality, lost his patience with her a long time ago. I would catch this child screaming expletives at my brother. She would attempt to bonk his head or kick him. Thankfully, Waki was trained to give due respect and patience to kids younger than him.He would just keep quiet about it or make sumbong to diva's mom.

There was a time when I had to spank her because when I asked her politely to throw her trash on the garbage can, she went on diva mode, threw a wet towel at me in defiance and she made "duro" at me. No, I'm not being overly dramatic. She looked like she wanted to slice me into pieces and then with all the conviction a three year old girl could muster, pointed at me and gave me the dirtiest look I've ever seen on a toddler. No screaming, no crying, she pointed at me like that in silence and it looked like the devil child was praying for my immediate death. I was both infuriated and creeped out, to be honest.

Can you imagine? I have never known any child who could make duro to an adult like that before.

I had t restrain myself from slapping her. I know, I know. You are not supposed to spank a child but let me tell you something, spend an hour with this child and you will know what I'm talking about.

Of course, I don't expect all kids to be angels every time. Playing the nanny for a long time showed me that kids have very unpredictable behaviours. However I expect some form of restrain on their part particualrly when they are spending their time in places other than  their own home.

It took a lot of work on my part to mold Waki into a sweet, polite and decent kid (biased much?) that he is today. Me and my mom get praises every time. But he did start out naughty. Not as naugthy as diva child here but naughty in his own little way. Back in the day, I did spank Waki, hard. It was the time when he went batshit on me and threw a matchbox car  right at my face. If it hadn't been for my glasses, he would've hit me squarely in the right eye/nose bridge.I was astounded at how accurate he can aim considering I was several feet away from him when it happened.

I hit him once on the butt and it was so hard, he still remembers it to this day.

Needless to say he never pulled any stupid stunts like that again. However, in the case of this diva, I don't get what her deal is. I tried all sorts of techniques to get her to behave and I failed miserably each time. It came to a point where I can't even stand being near her, is that so bad? My mom said it's because the child is used to being spanked hard every time she does something bad. No amount of reasonable talk could get her to stop acting out.

Drool

"My ideal first date is to not fuck it up"

-Jonathan Rhys Meyer on Cosmo